1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a variable adaptive projector system for motor vehicles, and, more particularly, to a structure designed to vary the positions of shields inside the projector lighting unit in order to change the spatial distribution of light on the road. The shields in projector lighting unit can be placed in four defined positions for generating four different beam patterns: a wet road beam function for bad weather; a low beam function (passing beam); a high beam function (driving beam); and a motorway beam function for highway driving.
2. Related Technology
In order to generate low beam light and high beam light, the prior art headlamps have typically been equipped with either separate lighting units or combined lighting units utilizing two-filament light sources. Another possibility for combining low beam and high beam light involves a mechanism installed inside the lighting unit and providing for movement of an optical element, such as a shield, a light source, part of a reflector or the whole reflector itself.
For motorway and wet road (rain or bad weather) beam function, the additional lighting units are needed. The main disadvantages of these additional lighting units consist in higher demands required by the installation of these units in the headlamp, the additional light sources required, the higher power requirements and the higher costs.